Corvette Forums - Corvette Enthusiast Site - Not Another DVD Head Unit Install...

Hello All,
I installed a DVD / Navgation head unit in my C5 to replace the Delco CD head unit. It was an interesting install to say the least. I retained the factory front door speakers and added new rear speakers and dash tweeters.

The front 3" and rear 5.25" full-range speakers are being powered by the internal power amp inside the radio. The 8" mid-bass / bass speakers are still being powered by the 100 watt Bose digital amp. Since the 8" woofers were not truly "subwoofers", I used the front RCA line output from the new DVD head unit to drive the 8" woofers. To interface the RCA line output with the Bose amp I had to make an adapter. After the adapter was made and installed I noticed that there was not a lot of output from the 8" woofers although they were playing - just not very loud / matched to the other speakers.

After some investigating, I discovered that I needed more gain to match the Bose amp to the other speakers. The Bose amp input circuitry is not "typical" like most other amps. I thought about making a small circuit to give me the gain that I needed, but then I remembered an Audio Control EQL that I had sitting, in the garage, on a shelf. This gave me the gain I needed, plus some half-octave bass equalization, which is always good. Initially, the system sounded much better than with the Delco head unit. The imaging and staging still stunk though. I needed some tweeters to pull the front stage more toward the front because the 3" Bose speakers are firing directly into your thighs. As you can see from the pictures, I found some tweeters that fit perfect into the bottom of the A-pilars. After some level matching, with different resistor values, I finally had some high frequencies back in my music. Now, even with the top down, Ihave a system that sounds very good.

CG